A Day on the Lake

For July 3rd, our neighbors, Jason and Michelle invited us to go boating with them. If you know us, you know we aren't boaters ... probably mostly because we haven't had the opportunity much in the past, not because we don't like to. This was actually only my 2nd time ever boating. I went once in March or early April at Lake Powell with a college friend... it was COLD so I didn't actually get in the water much. And that was in 1996!

Anyway, our girls were so excited about it! Especially Alyssa who is always envious when everyone else in our neighborhood goes to Powell for a week on their houseboats. We loaded up and headed out!

The family on the boat!

Michelle's cousins came too. This is my Jessica with Michelle's cousin Jessi.

Alyssa really wanted to try wake boarding. This board was just too big for her though.

Determined little kid...

KneeBoarding was a better option although that even took a bit. But once she was up, she LOVED it!

Waving at our friends, the Gormans, who were also on the lake in their boat.

Jason trying to get Taylor to loosen up and enjoy the water. Check out her face! She looks like she is scared to death. He's motioning for Alyssa to come over. Now look at her face in the next picture. The second Alyssa took her, Taylor turned it off. And she literally had a little smirk on her face like "haha Jason. It worked!" She really knows how to turn it on and off to get her way, little stinker! She wasn't afraid of the water, although she wasn't excited about it either. She was just giving Jason a hard time. Don't give up Jason, someday, you will get through her shy exterior!!

The girls getting ready to tube. Jessica is giving the thumbs down sign (means to slow down) and they aren't moving yet!! Alyssa and Taylor were ready to go though!

Alyssa LOVED tubing! So did Taylor, much to my surprise!!

You can see Taylor's face a little better in this one. She was all about going faster! She did not want to stop or slow down at all!

Michelle, Jessi with Cole, Taylor and my Jessica. They are trying to get Cole to be happy so they are singing a Tooty Ta, A Tooty Ta, A Tooty Ta Ta (thumbs up...). Jessica was fine as long as someone else was holding her and distracting her a bit. Taylor still wanted to go faster but she did laugh her head off trying to sing Tooty Ta while tubing!

My turn with my girls and Jessi. Jessica wasn't as happy this time - we were going a lot faster.

Steve tried fiercely to do wake boarding - he had never done that before. Didn't succeed though. Next time! He did however pop up on the slalom ski the very first time. And its been about 8 years since he water skiied. He even managed to go in and out of the wake a few times!

Then there is me! First, a fact about me that very few people used to know ... I don't like water if I can't touch the ground!! I didn't get exposed to swimming much as a kid and as a result I didn't learn how to swim until college. I took a class in college, but I never overcame the fear I had of not being able to touch the bottom. As a kid, when you swim you learn to play in the water, start swimming from wherever you are, jump into the pool etc. I have have always HATED my fear of water. It frustrates me and it is something I desperately want to overcome - thus the reason I took a swim class in college. It is something that I used to feel very embarrased and self-conscious about. I've realized that if I am ever to overcome my fear, I have to no be so self-conscious about it though. I rarely do water slides or even swim when there are a lot of people around. I really have to feel comfortable. Anyway, back to our boating day. Trying wake boarding was something I WANTED to do ... but it scared me half to death. I got in the water with the board on, but as I sat there with the board tipping in the motion of the water, the panic started. I had to let go before the rope even started to pull tight. I laid there on my back with my feet in the boots absolutely scared to death and tears in my eyes. It took every effort I had to relax and breath deeply just to get the tears to stop before the boat got back to me. Fortunately, Jason knows me well enough not to push, so, I switched to knee boarding instead. I was still pretty anxious and never got up on the kneeboard completely, but I tried. At that was a big step for me. I swear, someday I will ski. Someday, I will overcome my fear! Until then ... just be patient with me.

All in all, it was a very fun day!! Thanks Jason and Michelle! We look forward to boating again sometime, hopefully soon! Probably when we go camping at Pineview in two weeks!